Heart & Soul or: What You Love Makes Me Stronger!

Never Get Tired!!!

CW: discussion/depiction of homophobia and ableism, including slur usage | suicide imagery

credits

released December 30, 2021

You can also listen to the prequel album, "UnPop or: How She Learned to Stop Giving a Shit and Love the Music", released in December of 2019: johnjrenns.bandcamp.com/album/unpop-or-how-she-learned-to-stop-giving-a-shit-and-love-the-music

Sample on track 8 is from Tim Rogers' "Action Button Reviews Tokimeki Memorial"

Interpolation of "あいどんわなだい" and "Baby Baby" by 銀杏BOYZ on track 13.

Interpolation of "The First Time I Met Sanawon" by Bomb the Music Industry! on track 15.

Instead of the usual blurb, here are some words about this album and the ALBUM-A-MONTH project from JohnJRenns itself.

This is the final album in my year-long project to release an album every month for the year of 2021. It's been a long journey since I first began producing music in 2016 - almost 6 years ago now. With this record, it feels like I'm closing a chapter in my life.

My musical adventure started in an objectively hilarious fashion; it goes back to this fan music collective for the web comic Homestuck, called the "cool and new music team". I met some of my best friends and greatest musicians I know personally from that community. Most of you reading this won't even recognize that name though - and trust me, you don't know how bittersweet that makes me feel.

Anyway, eventually I stopped making fandom music, then I started doing fandom music again, and now I've stopped again. The album UnPop, which I created this album as a spiritual successor to, was, in a way, my attempt to 'get out' of the fandom scene. I wanted to create a wholly original work of music using my own characters and garner an audience. And it worked; to this day, that is a beloved album by the few dozens of people online who call themselves listeners of my music, for which I am eternally grateful for. That album was an expression of my queerness; an image of my fears for this world and a celebration for my hopes for it. I'm proud to have it be my defining work.

I've had an idea to do an 'album every month' project for years now. In fact, it predates even UnPop's existence, since I first thought about it in 2018. Ever since that idea came back up after UnPop's release, it only made sense for me to wrap the whole thing up with another 'UnPop' album. But this time, it's not a desperate attempt for me to dissociate myself from 'fandom'. What a ridiculous concept that was in the first place; Why did I like Homestuck? Why did I like Omori? Ultimately, that doesn't even matter, because they made me want to create more art. And that's a beautiful thing, I think. In my 2018 album Rain, I cryptically tried to express that fandom can be a beautiful force for the inspiration of art and creativity. Well, I think I can count around 3 people who liked that album. So this time, I wanted to do it right.

In the process of writing this album, I came to a thesis statement: That I believe queerness, fandom culture, and creative expression through stories are all intrinsically tied to one another. This album is somehow simultaneously about embracing your queerness, embracing the 'cringe' within you, and embracing not only the art you love but the people you love in your life as well. I consider all these things to be connected, and ultimately, the same thing.

This is a celebration of every person who decided to just do whatever the fuck they want to do in their life. It's for everyone who has 'learned how to stop giving a shit and love the music'. By showing myself at my most uncompromised form, I hope it can inspire to find that form for yourself as well.

Or something like that, idk. I also hope you just like it, it is a good album in my opinion. I like the part with the brostep drop.

It feels like every work of art I've made in my life up until this point has lead to this moment. This should feel more emotional for me, really, but I'm just excited to finally take a rest. I never got tired, though. I did my best to never get tired.

Thank you everyone who has been sticking with me through this crazy fucking year. And for those of you in the future who are enjoying this insane venture of mine retroactively; thank you as well. Thanks for reading through this long ramble as well. Thank you to everyone who tell me nice (or bad) things about my art and also those who don't say anything but only listen. You make me feel like I'm not alone in this anymore.

See you later again one day. stay happy!